Читать книгу Why God Wills You to Suffer - William Lolli - Страница 5

This book is for believing Christians who struggle to understand suffering and why God allows it. Indeed, more than that—why God, who is the Great Uncreated Eternal Omniscient Almighty Being, interactively perpetuates suffering across the spectrum of mankind, from the distant past, the present and long into the future.

There are many who hold fast the belief that God is Absolute Love, Who wants no harm to come to anyone, and is the God who Saves and Heals. And I concur, God surely is all of those things. But the adherence to that belief cannot explain the ubiquity of suffering, nor God’s role in allowing it on a grand universal scale. To hold to the belief that God is Love—a harmless kind of Love-- is to deny reality.

This book is not necessarily limited to believing Christians. But, for the unbeliever, the reader needs to know that the focus of this book’s content presupposes that the reader is “saved” in the traditional sense. Being “saved” means that a person has accepted Jesus’ atonement for their sins by His death on the cross and has provided the promise of eternal life. This book is written from this perspective and assumes that the reader has a referential background in God’s Word, yet struggles with the questions surrounding God’s Will as it pertains to suffering.

So, by focus of content and intent of design, this book is not for everyone. But it still may be for you.

In its pages you will find an explanation for the suffering of man, why the Almighty God divinely wills it to be so, and your role as a divinely connected co-sufferer.

‘Suffering’ has plagued kings and slaves alike. It lies at the heart of the reason for the creation of many false religions and political systems. Throughout the history of man, man has used the threat of suffering as a method of control over the weak by the strong. In contrast, the relief from suffering has propelled man from living in tents and caves to the creation of great civilizations. It has also been the same catalyst for bringing great civilizations to dust. Just in the last two centuries, the pursuit of the relief from suffering has led mankind to technological heights as well as created the most oppressive forms of governments ever to have existed.

The sciences of psychology, sociology, and anthropology are inadequate to answer the question about man’s suffering with respect to God. The scope of human experiences, by their very construct, are too limited a frame of reference. Just as in the case of self-analysis, self-sentience alone is not enough to deduce the reason for the existence of self. The answers must come from ‘outside’ the human experience. Therefore the source for answers must come from God’s own revelation.

There is nothing to sugar coat the answer to the question ‘Why God Wills you to Suffer’. You may not like the answer. It is a hard answer. It requires a shift of perspective that many will find difficult to accept or will reject outright. But the answer is not presented as speculation. It is not a guess. It is founded upon a framework that has its origins outside of the human experience. It comes from God’s own revelation of Himself, His Divine Nature, and through His Word.

A believer in Christ can go through a lifetime of suffering and never know why God designed it to be so. Until of course, at the end, when it is finally made clear.

But there is no need to wait. There is no need to cry in the dark like a child: ‘why, God, why?’ God has already revealed the ‘why’ of the design. And He has provided His Holy Spirit to illumine the way.

As A.W. Tozer said:

“Everywhere… we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted by the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text.”

Truth only requires the believer let go of his own fallen morality, examine the subject through the lens of the revealed attributes of the Sovereign Almighty God, and to let the Spirit of God provide the illumination.

Let’s get started. And let’s go deep into the heart of God.